Quotes About Vulnerability

Of course Lily had agreed. She would have agreed to virtually anything Sharon requested, to please her, to allay her fears. Always there was something satisfying, even exciting, about a secret with someone both strong-willed and helpless-seeming like Sharon.

I presented this game to one of the accomplishment groups after we had been working together for several months, and I gave them the choice, collectively, to fill out the phrase, so they could set the ante for themselves. Together they decided that "sex" was the only word in the entire English language worth putting in the blank. So, "Have the Best Sex Ever" became the game of the week.

Whenever somebody gives up their pride to reveal a truth to others," I told him, "we find it incredibly moving; in fact, we are all so moved that even the cameraman is crying." I hadn't actually looked in the direction of

Humor can bring us together around our inescapable foibles, confusions, and miscommunications, and especially over the ways in which we find ourselves acting entitled and demanding, or putting other people down, or flying at each other's throats.

WHEN ONE PERSON peels away layers of opinion, entitlement, pride, and inflated self-description, others instantly feel the connection.

It was better not to get too close to another person. The closer you got, the more likely you were to get hurt.

Soon she cried and farted herself to sleep.

This so gnawed at him on some nights that he lay awake wondering just how many unknown and similarly inconsequential accidents and bits of happenstance were at this moment occurring or failing to occur in order to ensure he took his next breath, and the next. It gave him the sensation that he was tottering on the tip of a flagpole. He was poised on circumstance.

When overcome with laughter, they lost all dignity, however, and choked, snorted, burped, wheezed, even farted, which made them ever more hysterical.

You're not very trusting. Are you sure you haven't been around here before?" "My dad is a drunk." "Oh, I get it," said Jack. "Mine was too.

And Patrice thought another thing her mother said was definitely true—you never really knew a man until you told him you didn't love him. That's when his true ugliness, submerged to charm you, might surface. After all, it had happened with Bucky.

No. I don't see," said Patrice flatly. But she did see. Jack would have tampered with her slightly, just enough so that when somebody else came along she'd have that shame, then more shame, until she got lost in shame and wasn't herself.

My dying tree reached toward the sky from its back down on earth. Its branches were like beseeching arms. It takes a while for life to leave green wood. I felt the helplessness, the lack of agency, the frustration of the tree. Severed from its roots, unable to taste the starlight.

And Patrice thought another thing her mother said was definitely true—you never really knew a man until you told him you didn't love him.

And so when they tell you that I was heartless, a shameless man-chaser, don't ever forget this: I loved what I saw. And yes, it is true that I've done all the things they say. That's not what gets them. What aggravates them is I've never shed one solitary tear. I'm not sorry. That's unnatural. As we all know, a woman is supposed to cry.

I've read that certain memories put down in agitation at a vulnerable age do not extinguish with time, but engrave ever deeper as they return and return.

The whole time we made love, in deepening light, we watched each other's faces as the expressions came and went. We saw the pleasure and the tenderness. We saw the helplessness deepen. We saw the need that was a beautiful sickness between us.

Bernadette thought she could trust young Nector Kashpaw because he'd been exposed to the withering light of the government school.

I'd been a snowflake. Without my specialness, I melted," she says.

When my feelings were too much for me I used to wrap myself in blankets and lie in my closet waiting for the feelings to pass. At one point, I decided to become a person who didn't feel so much. I stand by that decision, though it didn't work.

I am probably porous because it costs a lot to not be aware.

When you write, you should put your skin on the table.

you've probably noticed that after the first half-century practically everybody gets leaky, they can't keep it in ... hence the cruelty of long drawn-out meals and drinking sessions ... ships and apartment houses are the same ... everything starts to leak ... sphincters, bladders, drain pipes, bowels ... the half-century is merciless for ladies and gentlemen ... worse for dogs and cats! ... with them it comes sooner! ... five ... six years ...

Men are the thing to be afraid of, always, men and nothing else.